


Fix It

by iwasanartist



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 06:29:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18424788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwasanartist/pseuds/iwasanartist
Summary: There's a lot to repair after Titan.





	Fix It

**Author's Note:**

> This could be a companion piece to [Let the Dust Settle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16325102), but you don't have to read that to read this. Just know that Nebula and Tony left Titan together. And in case it matters, when it comes to Civil War and the whole feuding Avengers thing, I'm very much Team Everybody Made Mistakes And I Love All My Babies, Even When They Don't Love Each Other.

Tony could barely hear her over the sound of his torch and all the thoughts in his head. It’d been a long time since he had to patchwork a suit together out of junk, and the feel and smell of it were taking him back to places he didn’t want to be. Of course, the places he did want to be were in short supply these days. 

“Stark!”

Tony killed his torch and turned to Nebula, the part alien, part android woman who’d survived Titan with him.

“Yeah?”

“I need your hands.” 

Nebula was sitting at a workbench with one arm palm-up on the table. A panel in her forearm was open and she held a pair of forceps in the other hand, shifting only slightly to make more room as Tony approached.

“What’s up?”

Nebula nodded to the inner workings of her arm. “I need you to lift those two wires so I can access the circuitry beneath.”

Tony frowned at the offending wires. He had a whole suit to finish building.

“Looks like there’s plenty of room,” he said.

Her gaze was hard as she stared at him.

“There is. But when the wires touch the rest of mechanics, it sends a jolt that is … unpleasant.” The word dripped from her tongue, betraying a hatred that could have been for Tony or the biotech or herself, he wasn’t sure. But something in that look said not test her.

Tony picked up an extra pair of forceps and bent over her arm.

“Fair warning, I haven’t played Operation in about 40 years.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Nebula said, her voice implying she didn’t care to know what it was either.

“Tough crowd,” Tony muttered as he lifted the two wires. It was a job DUM-E could have done and for which Tony was vastly overqualified. Then again, the chance to take another look at Nebula’s...well, anything really...was one he couldn’t pass up. But soon enough it was over and she shooed him back to his Iron quilting. The work gave him plenty of time to think. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough time to have a good answer for her next words.

 

“We’re a few days from Earth. Have you formed a plan yet?” 

“Not exactly. I guess we’ll have to start with recon. If what happened on Titan happened everywhere we’ll need to take stock. See if anyone from my team-” He stopped abruptly as the words left his mouth. He hadn’t thought of them collectively as “his” anything for years.

“You have a team?”

“Sort of. Not really, no. Not since it all went to shit.” Tony dropped the latest piece of armor into a tub of water and listened to it sizzle. “But I guess if anyone survived Thanos it’d be Captain Dickhead.”

Nebula cocked her head and frowned at him. Tony could practically see the gears turning in her head. 

“I’m familiar with some of your terms,” she said. “That seems an unfortunate name.”

Tony exhaled sharply. It might have been a laugh if anything about the past week, month, years had been funny.

“Steve Rogers,” he said bitterly as he grabbed a mallet and started hammering on a piece of metal. “We were friends, once upon a time. Until he went and he just… Fucked. Up. Everything.” Each word was punctuated by a bang until the last slammed down with such force that the mallet flipped from his hand and the chunk of misshapen metal clanged to the floor. Tony stared at it before collapsing onto a bench. What was he doing? Even if he could scrounge up enough material, he’d end up with something barely on the level of the Mark 1, and what even was the point?

Nebula stepped over his mess and sat down next to him. One hand still fiddled with the mechanics of her other arm.

“He must have been a good friend to inspire such hatred.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“What did he do?”

“Hmph. What didn’t he do,” Tony said. “He wouldn’t listen to reason. Turned his back on everything we built. Tore the team apart. All so he could shack up with a super assassin. A super assassin who murdered my parents, which he knew about and didn’t tell me.”

“Traitor,” Nebula spat. “Why would he do such a thing?”

Tony sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. “I don’t know. They go way back and he said something about brainwashing and his friend not knowing...I don’t know. But he should have told me. I spent most of my life thinking they died in a car crash. That it was just random bad luck….” he shook his head as the words trailed off. “Bastard even said he he thought he was doing it for me. That it’d be easier to live in a lie than face the truth.”

Nebula was silent, leaving Tony to stew in his thoughts with nothing but the scratch of her tool against the inner workings of her arm.

“Let me see if I understand,” she said finally. “Someone you cared for held something back to spare you pain, and you’re angry about it?”

“Don’t tell me you’re taking his side.”

“I take my side,” Nebula said. “Your petty human squabbles mean nothing to me.” She closed the panel on her arm and tried to make a fist, wincing as the joints of her fingers stopped halfway there. She pried the panel open again. “But some fictions do less harm than reality.”

Tony watched her work and found himself again wondering about her history but knowing full well an inquiry would probably end with a wrench to the head. She just had that kind of look about her.

“Can you fix it?” she said, breaking the silence as she worked. Tony kicked at the lump of metal at his feet while she closed her arm panel again.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think it’s all just too broken.”

“Is anything ever, really?” Nebula said. There was a small smile at the corner of her lips as she held up her hand, the fingers moved freely and easily.

* * *

The voice crackled again over the speaker as Tony bent down below the console, splicing wires together.

“Should have figured this out before we go here!” he yelled to Nebula.

_“Unidentified craft, identify yourself or we will open fire.”_

“We have weapons,” Nebula said. Her voice was almost overpowered by the shriek of twisting metal and he was pretty sure something just popping off the outside of the ship. “I can target their base before they get a shot off-”

“Nope, no no,” Tony said as he popped out from under the console and pushed a button. “Hold your fire,” he said. “This is Tony Stark.”

Silence.

“Unidentified craft-”

“Damn it-” Tony pounded on the side of the comms unit. He could hear a rustling on the other end of the line and then a new voice that made Tony’s heart leap.

“Listen up, joker, don’t mess with us right now. Respond or we will blow your tiny-ass ship out of the sky.”

Tony gave another whack to the console and mentally cheered when a single green button lit up. He jammed it down.

“Slow your roll, Rhodey,” he yelled. “Is that anyway to greet a friend?”

Silence, again.

“Tony?”

“Yeah buddy, good to hear your voice. Listen, my ship’s kind of falling apart out here; know any good landing spots?”

“Yeah. Yeah, hang on,” Rhodey sounded like he was going into shock but doing everything he could to fight it. He kept talking, but with each word, his voice shrank a little farther into the distance. “Call off the fighter jet...Open a hole in the shields….Have medical on standby and get….” And then his voice was gone.

“Rhodey?” Tony said. “Rhodes, I need to know where to go, man.”

“Tony, it’s Bruce-” 

Tony pumped his fist silently for another friend who made it through “Glad to hear you’re still with us Banner! Where’d Rhodey?”

“Ran outta here like a man on fire. Listen, I’m going to send you some coordinates -- it’s gonna seem weird, but trust me -- oh. Looks like you won’t need them.”

“What? Why?”

There was a roar and then a tap on the window. Tony turned his head slightly to the left and came face to faceplate with the gray metal and red eyes of War Machine. The corner of his mouth ticked up and Tony gave a little wave.

“Just needed to see for myself,” Rhodey said. “Follow me. And trust me.”

“You got it.”

Rhodey flew ahead and left a trail for them to follow in their ship that was well past starting to sound like a rickety old boat.They passed over a tree line and neared what should have been Avengers compound, but something was wrong.

“Your friend is heading for a building,” Nebula said. 

“None of these buildings should be here,” Tony muttered.

“He’s going to crash.”

“Rhodey, what’re you doing, pal?”

“Trust me,” Rhodey said, and in the blink of an eye, he was gone. 

If he were a lesser man, Tony might have panicked. Called out. Pulled up and away. Instead, he leaned on the stick, barreling through Nebula’s protestations and, as it turned out, a holographic skyscraper that left them hovering over a grassy knoll. A laugh bubbled up from inside him, and he tried to ignore a death glare from Nebula, still white-knuckling a guard rail as he set the ship down and lowered the ramp.

A crowd had formed by the time they exited the ship. Nebula got a few looks that she returned with her own set of dagger eyes, but Tony didn’t have much time to worry over it, because by his estimation if took all of 3.4 seconds for Rhodey to shed his suit, wrap his arms around Tony and lift, spinning him around like some sort of Disney princess. Tony couldn’t even be mad about it, as his feet touched ground again and Rhodey beamed at him.

“It’s good to see you, too,” Tony said with a smile as he looked around the crowd. There was a lot of military, which didn’t surprise him. But what did surprise him was who he didn’t see. No Vision. No Pepper. No Fury or Hill. Just Bruce and Thor -- bless his muscles on top of muscles and weirdly short hair -- Romanoff...wait. If Romanoff was there, that could only mean…

“Take care of my friend,” he said, gesturing to Nebula but eyes still on the crowd. There he was. In the back, practically hiding behind a pillar of a garage. Rhodey followed his gaze, and Tony could feel his demeanor shift. Like he was expecting a fight.

“Listen, Tony. Steve’s-” Tony brushed him off and marched stone-faced toward Steve Rogers. He wanted to hate him. He wanted to blame him and still punch him in his still perfect teeth. Because it was Steve, who lied to him. Who broke them all up. Who ran away. 

But it was also Steve, who once spent three hours in the middle of the night over pizza and beer telling him stories about Howard that Tony never would have believed if they weren’t coming from Captain America. Who spent another three hours over ice cream listening to Tony talk about his mother. Not because he was humoring an odd touch of nostalgia, but because he actually wanted to know about the woman who had grabbed Howard Stark’s heart.

It was Steve, who, when the world was ending, came home. Who clearly had fought and lost and ached for the same piece of rock and the same family Tony did.

The crowd parted as he moved through it. The closer he got to Steve, the better he could see the hand lightly clenching and unclenching by his side. The way he’d shift ever so slightly on his feet, drop his head and look up at Tony only to look away a moment later. What was that? 

Was it regret? 

Was it righteousness?

Did it even matter?

“Tony,” Steve said. “I-” 

Tony kept moving, and he didn’t stop until his arms slipped under Steve’s and his cheek collided with his shoulder. Tony squeezed as hard as his battle-weary limbs could manage, and it took barely any time at all for Steve to return the embrace, lowering his head to Tony’s shoulder.”

“We’ve got to fix it,” Tony said. “We’ve got to fix all of it.”


End file.
